Tzav: When G-d Does Exodus Again
Transcript(from the video captions)
So let's prayashay. We bless and sanctify you. We thank you so much for this season of redemption the gula and we look forward to your deliverance in our lives. A continuum to continue to grow in you. to continue to be released from all forms of bondage from the least to the greatest. And also knowing that while freedom has a price, touch our hearts, reshape us, and form us to be able to walk in you and pay whatever price we need to pay because we know our Messiah paid the ultimate price. We pray in Yeshua's name. All right. So, a question for all of you. Raise your hand if you have experienced a personal miracle. Oh, come on. More hands than that. Really? Okay. I I'll I'll take it. I'll take it. I know some some of you are a little shy. If you are in Messiah Yeshua, that is a miracle. Just want to let you know or an amen to that. We all need a miracle from time to time. and sometimes more times than others. Last week we looked at five types of corban, the offering, the drawing near to God. And this week paradav, which means to command, introduces us to another corbanto, thank you. A gratitude offering, a free
will offering to God. Thanking God. And Rashi tells us something remarkable with this. The toadah was brought after one experienced some form of deliverance. If one was sick and Hashem made him well. If one traveled through danger and made it back safely. Think about sailing the stormy seas, you know, and you you're delivered. If one was imprisoned and was set free. Sometimes today we call this beer hael. We we're giving God the glory for saving us. But this was the toad offering to God, the thanksgiving offering to God. that person would bring that not a general casual gratitude not something obscure but a real thank you to God because sometimes the gula the redemption doesn't just happen all at once. We get flashes of light that happen over time. And we want to give God the the the gratitude and the glory for those times to remember that he is always with us. It's a declaration. God brought me out. God brought me out. God delivered me from my troubles. God delivered me from my sins. God delivers me now. And that brings us to this season today because we're entering into the season of Pesak,
the season of deliverance, the season of freedom, the season of redemption, the season of amuna, faith. Because when we came out of Egypt, we didn't have all the answers, we didn't have perfect certainty of what was going to happen, but rather we had a walk in faith.
We left Egypt trusting God for what was going to come next. There was no time for the bread to rise. By the way, this is the one time we're commanded to eat fast food, but not that kind of fast food. Come on. No time to prepare the dough. That would have taken time. But rather, we had to move quickly. We could only follow our God. We had to follow. And that's what the redemption requires of us. that we have to follow our God and his authority. So, we ate the matzah, which some of you love it, some of you like it, some of you hate it. But we didn't eat it because it was convenient. We ate it because the redemption was moving faster and faster, faster than we could manage. And so, that's where the matzah comes in. Have you ever been brought out of something that should have actually taken you out? I have. That's for another time, though. Yeah. That's what the redemption's all about. Something that was going to take us out, but rather God took us out. We're going to see that today where one was going to be taken out by somebody else, but yet God stepped in to deliver and take him out instead.
That's the redemption. A moment where you knew if God didn't intervene, that was going to be it. You would not be here today. That's birkat. That is toada. That's how we bring that offering to God. And yet in this week's parial, we see it. We're introduced to this fire that's continually burning and the eternal light, the a tamid, the the eternal fire, the flame of our God. Now, the sages taught us that this wasn't one single flame. It was actually three arrangements. A fire of and for the corbonote because we had to bring the corbonote the sacrifices to our god. The fire of the ctor that would be the incense. And the third was the fire that never went out. That was the tamid. But before the fire is renewed, as I said earlier, and I want to remind us that the co-anim have to step in and do that underprivileged or that underrated task of removing and scooping yesterday's fire. Really, the ashes of yesterday are removed and they raise them up. They do something called terramaten, which is a lifting up of the ashes and then carrying them outside the camp to a clean place of remembrance because the
ashes of yesterday, even though they are holy and we remember them and they are good, we can't run on yesterday's fire because God is renewing our fire fresh every day. And this is something so important to remember as we walk in our God. Yesterday's offering, yesterday's encounter, yesterday's amuna, we have to move in today because those can't fuel today. The fire of Hashem must continually burn in our hearts, in our minds, in our lives, in our families. And as we said last week on our schwan on our tables. Now here's a question for you. How many of you continue to drive when your gas light flicks on? Raise your hand. Ah, a lot of those out there. Yeah. You know what? I I'm guilty of doing this, too. Because, you know, gas prices are really expensive right now. That's an excuse. I did it when it was 240. Okay. Passover asked this question. Are you running on fumes? Freedom always has a cost. It's not free. And I still have to be willing to pay the price. And so that brings us to this question. Am I willing to pay the price to follow Yeshua? And that brings us to Mosley Hashim, the acts of the apostles, chapter 12
because it's not just a story. See, this is Peso revisited. This is Passover in 3D happening again. A moment where the people of God, the messianic community are running on fumes. We are experiencing persecution. It arises in Jerusalem on Kagamatsot during the festival of Passover. And then a dangerous political adversary arises, the son of Herod the Great. Now, Herod was an Idomian convert, the great Herod who built an extension on the the temple and remodeled it. He was an outsider that ruled Israel basically by an iron fist, not by covenant, but by power. And his son arises in his place. Like Pharaoh, Herod the Great was brutal and murderous. Again, his son was a descendant. Any threat to his kingship, he would take them out. But now, this was Herod agria, walking in the footsteps of his father, King Herod. And he arises as a pharaoh-like figure in the book of Acts to crush what God is building. Because you know we are God's building. We'll go to Acts 12:1. Now at that time Herod the king laid hands on some who belong to the community to harm them. He killed Yakov known as James the brother of Yoken.
This is James, the brother of John, the sons of thunder, not James the just killed killed him with a the sword. So Yakov is gone. There's a price. He's gone. And when he saw that this pleased this agria, Herod Agrippa pleased the Udoi, the Judeans who were corrupt, he proceeded to arrest Kea also. So now he's going after Peter. Kea, pressure arises in Jerusalem. Fear, exhaustion, running on fumes. This is a difficult time. And yet so Keo is kept in prison because he arrested him and put him in bondage. Prison. Where were we in Egypt? But prayer, the couttor, the incense, the prayer was going up to God fervently. Wow. earnestly, relentlessly, the coutura, the prayer going up to God from this messianic community. The Greek carries this sense of being stretched that the messianic community was being stretched. This was hard. This was laborious laboring aboda in prayer as a community, spending time in prayer. can be very timeconsuming. And the children of Israel grown. We hear this a flash of Exodus 2:23. Their cry went up to God in the Exodus. Remember that in the Exodus, their cry went up to God. The ctor in the Exodus,
the incense, God hears those cries. The cries are going up to God from the endless labor, the broken spirit, and the brutal conditions of slavery. It went up and it went up some more to God. Just like the ctor, the incense. And we we're reminded of the altar of incense. The misbeak hawk to it. One of those fires in the Mishkan. These prayers, these heavenly prayers of the heart went up to God. And now the messianic community becomes the misbehto the altar of incense. And we're reminded of the importance of devoting ourselves to this kind of prayer that does involve labor. The prayers they're rising up. When you are running on fumes, you cry out. The messianic community here is crying out to God. The questions start to arise. Is following God really worth it? If I have to put up with this, if I don't have control, if I don't have certainty, if it's possible one would be martyed or or something else, if it's possible that I would lose something important, is the cost worth it? And we're reminded that freedom has a cost. And this is the cost, the uncertainty. in a tension with our faith.
Hold that tension. That's okay. But don't ignore it. Am I willing to pay the price to follow Yeshua? That is the question today that Acts of the Apostles asks us today. That's the question that the Exodus deeply calls out to us. And then that very night when Herod was about to bring him out, you see, Herod was going to bring him out to execute him like he did James. But God moves not later, not eventually. He moves at night. God sometimes moves in the middle of the night, but that very night, just like Pesak, Kea is sleeping. I only know one other that actually slept in a hard time like that. How could you sleep at a time like this? Bound with two chains between two soldiers with guards watching over the entire prison. This is this is high security. It seems there is no way out. But then behold an angel of the Lord suddenly appears and a light shone in the cell. A light in the darkness. The flash of light at the Exodus at night. And there a messenger, a Mollik. And the mock tells him, "Get up quickly. Move in haste. Gird up your loins. The chains fall." In verse 7, the chains fall off his
hands. And then put on your clothes. We could say, "Fasten your belt. Get moving. Put on your sandals." Ah, we have sandals too in this story. And follow me. Notice follow me. Follow the light of God. Follow the Mollik who is bringing you out in Hashem's name. This is Peso language. So strong, so deep, so powerful. The shape, the form, everything is there of the redemption, the guah, what it's going to look like, when it may happen, how it might happen. to remember our faith in hard times and we're encouraged. But at the same time, we know that freedom isn't free. Costs something. When God brings you out, you don't linger. You move in the power of Hashem. God is making a way where there seemingly is no way. And they passed. Oh, there's the word passed. They passed by the guards just as Israel passed through Egypt and the gate opened by itself and they went out. Kea goes out with the angel leading him out. Picture perfect Exodus as we're going through Egypt, but rather going through this prison and out. The gate opens up. What the sea was for Israel, the gate becomes for Kea. An impossible barrier
becomes a passageway. In the text, the sea, the gate become a narrow straight for the exodus because God will provide pressure and break you out of that place. There's a pressure. The Ruach making major pressure and that narrow straight opens wide. Open wide, O gate, our God is coming through. And that's when we get the toada in verse 11. Now I know, now I know for certain that Hashem has sent his Mollik and delivered me from the hand of Herod and from all that the Hudio, the Judeans were expecting. They were expecting him to come out to be executed. But now he's come out to live and to proclaim the Besser because the word of God is growing stronger and stronger within God's people as their prayers are going up to God. This is moving heaven. This is the power that we see. But the now I know is the Exodus story. Yetro, Jethro, Mosha's father-in-law. Remember this one? Now I know that Adonai is greater than all gods because he has delivered you from the hand of an evil tyrant. That's Exodus 18:11. Now I know Ka says now I know Yetro says that's your toada. Now I know. There's a prop up on the screen just for
to look. You have it in your notes as well. Now I know that God is greater than any fear, than any bondage, than any constraint. And I'm going to move in that because deliverance turns belief into knowing, to knowing who God is, into living that way, and to be able to pay the price. And knowing becomes toadah, gratitude. As we bring a heart of gratitude to God, knowing that he's delivered us from something very big and sometimes even smaller, but still so important because Hashem is always working when it comes to our deliverance. He's the ashtame, the eternal flame of our God. But do not miss this. Yakov is still dead. There's still a cost. The Exodus moment does not erase the cost. It reveals it. Freedom is never free. But I am willing to follow Yeshua wherever he will take us. That's the question. And Kea, he's out of prison now and he goes to the house of Miriam. Does that name sound familiar to anybody? Well, this is the mother of John, Mark, Miriam. A community of believers were gathered together, are still gathered together. Couturret is still going up to God relentlessly, fervently, and he
knocks at the gate. And then another dear woman, a servant girl, Roa, comes to the door, sees him at the gate, and her heart leaps for joy as she runs back to tell the others. Well, we've had some engagement here with some special women, haven't we, that have seen him first. But what do the rest of them say? You're out of your mind. You are out of your mind. It must be his Mollik, his angel. Wait a minute here. Let's think about this logic. Our prayers are going up for God. We're we're spending all of our time in prayer. We've got our kids there. We got everybody. We're praying. We're praying. We're taking shifts. We're doing our thing. And now Kea is delivered. And I don't believe it. What? Yeah, that sounds familiar, too. Did that happen after Yeshua wrote Never mind. praying for deliverance and they don't recognize it when it arrives. That's what we're familiar with, right? But when we do toada bring that to Herod searches for him, did parro did Pharaoh search for Israel? Now he's on a search and he cannot find him. So he executes the guards instead. We've got a reversal going on. And finally, on
the appointed day, Herod dons his robes. He takes his seat before the people of Ty and Siden and he speaks in front of them and they begin to worship him and they shout out, "This is the voice of God, not man." He takes on the glory and immediately a mollik strikes him down and he dies. Pharaoh pursued Israel.
Herod searched for Kea. Pharaoh made himself out to be God. Herod did the same. Pharaoh was struck. So was Herod. But the word of God kept growing and multiplying. Just as Israel kept growing and multiplying with the word of God in their midst. This is the power of the good news, the Besser. if we embrace it. So now sit in this for just a moment and let's just sit and think about all this and just let the Holy Spirit work for a moment this time because some of you as I can too are running on fumes. But we are encroaching on the Exodus now in a season of amuna. Help is right around the way. Some of you have been faithful and it still feels like nothing is changing because you don't see a movement. But God wants you to know he is moving. That was Israel. That was Acts 12 at a time when it seemed that the light was going to go out on the Messianic community. And some of you have experienced a Yakov, a James moment. We all have lost someone dear to us. someone in our midst and it doesn't make sense.
Some of you are like Kea. You have been brought out and that means you must bring your toad to that's your story. That's what God has done for you. That's one of the four sons testimony in the Hagada. What has God done for us? Everything. And he'll continue because that's who he is. And some of you, the door is open, but you just haven't you haven't seen it yet or you haven't ran to it yet. Maybe you're not running to it fast enough. And some of you are still in chains in some form. But this is the season of redemption. This is the season where the chains can break off in every possible way. We just have to be ready to walk through it. Deliverance is available. We are the messianic community. We have the power of God in our midst. We are God's building. Whether the adversary is Pharaoh or Herod or Hassetan or or any thing or anybody else, whether the agent is a Mollik or Moshe or our very own Messiah Yeshua who was behind it all. And whether those being delivered are Israel, ancient Israel, Kea, who is standing as Israel right now, almost like a one-man form of Israel for this this moment. Or it's you and me.
God moves and God brings us out. That is the Exodus. And the word of Messiah will keep growing if we stick to that testimony and realize that there is a cost, but it's worth it. It's worth it. Am I willing to pay the cost of following him when I don't truly know the outcome is the question.
So if you're running on fumes, just remember the the ah tamid remember the the ritual of the ashes and remember that it's important that your prayers and my prayers they rise up to shamayim that we invest time in that. And if you are feeling like you're in chains right now, be ready. Be ready because when God moves, you must move with him. Sandals on your feet, belt fastened, no hesitation. We move together in the Holy Spirit. And when God brings you out, say it, declare it. Toadah, toadah. Oh God, God brought me out. And we move from fumes to the altar because the altar is in our midst today. When we are willing to pay the cost, our faith becomes spiritual fuel. Call it spiritual jet fuel because we are no longer holding on to any idols anymore or the things that bind us, but rather only what is sacred. And in that moment we are released. So again ask the question God what am I holding on to that you have called me to release and release it. Release the fear release the control. Release the shackles of the adversary because God is moving you forward. So in conclusion today as we think about the
Exodus and this powerful story, we have one man dies and not just any man. This is a a disciple, a man of God. One man walks free and one king falls. And remember that man that walked free would eventually have to pay even a heftier price according to our tradition. And through it all, the word of God kept growing and it kept multiplying amongst the people. This is our basis. This is our good news. The cost is not the end of the story. Even though we might not see what's around the corner, we know that Hashem will not leave us or forsake us because God is bringing his people out. He's bringing us out and he will bring us out if we remain in him. But the question still remains, am I willing to pay the price to follow Yeshua even in hard times? And that's the question. And if he brought you out, don't keep it to yourself. Share it with the world. This is your toad. Bring your corban toada. Let's pray. Au shabbashayam. Our father in heaven. We bless and sanctify your name. We thank you for your love for us that we cannot contain. Have your way with us this peso season and bring us through any tur turmoil we
are facing. Touch our hearts and strengthen us for a Yeshua's name. Shabbat shalom.